This is Stabs, the xKore animated video flying under the Inspected music label. A perturbing enforcer, a brute villain and cold urban canyons are the key elements.

In about 9 weeks I generated 80 shots, a 3D modeled dark and ominous city center, 3D cars, effects, and piles of hand drawn animation. Environment concepts, figuring out who the characters were and the animatic was done in 2 weeks. The character key poses were hand drawn and scanned into Toonboom Animate for clean up, tweening and color. Compositing was in After Effects. Produced by Inspected. Thomas Slinger and Ryan Leech, Directors, Editors and concept.

There is more than 33 seconds of additional animation that is either not included in the xKore Stabs final edit, or is significantly cut short. Please do see the Stabs Outtakes reel and the background art.

I was given reference for the villain, Dr. X, early on. Not knowing about an existing Stabs design I initially thought of either an absolute wild man, or retro version of a seasoned mercenary. Below you will see some rough workups for whom Stabs might be – in blue. My sketches for Dr. X are in red. You can click on these to enlarge.

Below: My interpretation of the client’s design

Dr. X sketches: in the upper left corner are some of my explorations for alternate identities.